LOS ANGELES — California legislators plan to introduce a bill Thursday that would bolster efforts by Holocaust survivors, their heirs and other victims to recover artwork and other property stolen from them as a result of political persecution.

Assemblyman Jesse Gabriel, D-Encino, co-chair of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus and lead sponsor of the bill, said the measure was inspired by a recent ruling by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that found that current California law required an Impressionist masterpiece looted from a Jewish woman by the Nazis in 1939 to remain with a Madrid museum rather than be returned to the woman's family in the U.S.

"It immediately made sense to me that this was a unique opportunity to correct a historical injustice and make sure that something like this doesn't happen again," Gabriel said. "Respectfully, we think that the 9th Circuit got it wrong, and this law is going to make that crystal clear."

Gabriel said the bill hopefully will ensure better legal outcomes for other Californian families who have suffered politically motivated thefts — whether past, present or in the future.

"Our hope is that it's going to help others, other Holocaust victims and other victims of genocide and political persecution," Gabriel said. "It's specifically crafted to be applied more broadly."

The legislative effort — which Gabriel said already has bipartisan support — is the latest twist in a more than two-decade legal battle over the Camille Pissarro masterpiece "Rue Saint-Honoré in the Afternoon. Effect of Rain." It is also not the first time the California Legislature has bucked the powerful 9th Circuit on issues related to Nazi-looted art.

David Cassirer, whose great-grandmother Lilly Cassirer Neubauer had the painting stolen from her at the dawn of World War II, is appealing the 9th Circuit ruling against his family and welcomed the legislative effort as a potential leg up in that fight.

"It's very important that our laws support and enable Holocaust victims and their heirs to be able to recover this artwork that was stolen so long ago," he said. "I'm grateful."

Thaddeus Stauber, an attorney for the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum in Madrid, which obtained the painting as part of a massive collection of masterpieces in 1993 and rejects the family's claim to it, did not respond to a request for comment.

Neubauer relinquished the painting to a local Munich art dealer acting as a Nazi art appraiser in 1939, in exchange for a visa to flee Germany. It was a decision made under clear duress, as part of a vast Nazi program to steal Jewish wealth, and both parties to the ongoing case have agreed the incident constituted a theft.

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